THE POLICY OF THE SPENDTHRIFT.
PUBLIC opinion has been so much concentrated on the failure of the Government to collect the necessary revenue for the present financial year that too little notice has been taken of the fact that the Estimates for the coming year show an enormous increase in expenditure, and give further evidence of the spendthrift policy which has persistently characterised'a party pledged to economy. The best method of obtaining a measure of the manner in which the Liberal Party has added to the burdens of the country is to compare the expenditure for the year 1905-6 with the estimated expenditure for the year 1910-11. The comparison cannot be made with rigid accuracy because some elements are still in doubt, but the figures which are already available are sufficiently accurate and sufficiently striking. Let us take totals first. Adding together the expenditure charged against the Exchequer, the grants given to local authorities, and the expenditure charged against loans, it will be found. that the total national expenditure for which Parliament was responsible in the year 1905-6 was £156,561,000. In that year the total provision for the National Debt was £28,000,000, and therefore to get a true comparison we must assume that identical provision will be made in the coining year, though it is probable that the Sinking Fund, already raided by Mr. Lloyd George, will suffer further diminution. On the basis of a Debt charge of £28,000,000, and on the assumption that the other Consolidated. Fund charges remain the same as in the current year, and that the expenditure charged against capital shows a slight reduc- tion—namely, to £1,500,000—the total expenditure in the year 1910-11 would be £175,685,000. Deducting the total figure for 1905-6 from this, we obtain a difference of £19,124,000. Thus four and a quarter years of Liberal administration have sufficed to increase the expenditure of the country by over £19,000,000 a year. That figure in itself is appalling. Its true significance from the political point of view is revealed when we turn back to the speeches made by prominent Liberals when their opponents were in office. Speaking in May, 1901, Sir Henry Fowler expressed his belief that the expenditure of the country was " increasing at an unnecessary and dangerous rate." When he spoke, according to his own statement, the expenditure was £125,500,000. This figure cannot be compared without adjustment with the figures arrived at above, because the Sinking Fund was then almost entirely suspended, and Sir Henry Fowler appears to have taken no account of expenditure out of loans. Adding these items, we get roughly £137,000,000 in 1901 as the figure which has to be compared with the present total of £175,685,000. The point we wish to press is that the smaller figure was denounced in 1901 by Sir Henry Fowler, speaking for the whole Liberal Party, as excessive and dangerous. He then demanded a reduction of that rate of expenditure, and he was supported in the lobby by all the most prominent members of the present Cabinet. Similar demands were constantly pressed by the Liberal Party, and in January, 1906, that party went to the country pledged to a reduction of expenditure. They have not only ignored that pledge, they have not only 'failed to reduce expenditure, but they have increased it, as we have above shown, by over £19,000,000 a year.
Their favourite excuse for the increase of expenditure is that they have been forced to strengthen the Navy. This defence has the advantage of enabling the Liberals to put the blame for their extravagance upon " Tory panic-mongers." Let us examine the facts. If we take into account loan expenditure as well as Exchequer expenditure, the cost of the Navy in 1905-6 was £36,516,000. The corresponding Estimate for the coming year is £40,604,000, for it is not proposed in 1910-11 to have any loan expenditure. Thus the additional cost of the Navy accounts for only £4,088,000. The Army in 1905-6, including loan expenditure, cost £30,000,000. The Estimate for the coming year, assuming that there will be no loan expenditure, is £27,760,000. Thus there is a reduction on the Army of £2,240,000. Consequently, in spite of the now admitted advance of Germany, the total increase of national expenditure for defensive pur- poses is only £1,848,000, as compared with the last year for which a Tory Government were responsible. This figure ought finally to dispose of all the nonsense that has been talked by Radical orators about the painful necessity under which they find themselves of spending more money for national defence.
Deducting this £1,848,000 from the total increase of £19,124,000 for which the party pledged to economy is responsible, we have left the sum of £17,276,000. Rather more than half of this—namely, £9,220,000—is accounted. for by old-age pensions. We will say nothing here about the wicked improvidence which characterised the passing of the Old-Age Pensions Act of 1908. Our present point is that the rest of the expenditure of the Liberal Govern- ment has been marked by an equal spirit of recklessness. Broadly speaking, there is not a Department of the State which has not increased its cost to the country under the favouring influences of a Radical Ministry, with the result that, apart from defensive expenditure, and apart from old-age pensions, the annual expenditure of the country has increased by no less than £8,000,000. "
Three important items in this total stand out for special notice,—namely, Education, the Post Office, and Ireland.
In Great Britain the cost of public education has increased between 1905-6 and 1910-11 from £14,327,000 to £16,318,000. Here is £2,000,000 accounted for, and he would be a bold man who would venture to declare that the country had received any solid value for this additional expenditure. The Post Office is a still more striking illustration of Liberal lavishness with other people `'s money. In 1905-6 the Post Office services collec- tively brought in X21,010,000, and cost £16,000,000, showing a substantial net profit' of £5,000,000. No estimate has yet been published of the probable revenue of the Post Office for the coming year, but, taking the figures of the last two years, we may perhaps fairly put the revenue at £22,800,000. The estimated expendi- ture is £19,828,000, showing a profit of only £3,000,000. This result is the more striking because Socialists are never tired of pointing to the Post Office as the one brilliant example of Socialist administration. As a matter of fact, the Post Office has only been a success so far as it has been administered on Individualistic lines, and now that "a Socialistically inspired Government have control over it the profit which it used to yield to the taxpayer is rapidly disappearing.
Finally, we pass to Ireland, and we commend some of the following figures to the careful attention of our Irish correspondents who are never tired of assuring us that Ireland is overtaxed. In the five years under review the cost of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland has gone up from £190,000 to £416,000. The cost of the Irish Local Government Board has gone up from £58,000 to £102,000. The cost of the Irish Land Commission has gone up from £154,000 to £455,000. There has also been an increase of £250,000 in the cost of public education in Ireland, and a totally new item of £168,000 appears in the Estimates for Irish Universities and Colleges. There is an increase of £45,000 for public works and buildings in Ireland, and nearly £30,000 for Irish railways. Yet on the top of all this expenditure, which is defended sometimes on the ground that it will make Ireland peaceful as well as prosperous, we have an increase of over £100,000 in the cost of the Irish Constabulary. These items are not exhaustive, but they collectively amount to £1,164,000. Ireland, in a word, is becoming—indeed has already become—a serious drain upon the Imperial Exchequer. For, in addition to these large increases of expenditure for purely Irish purposes, we have also the notorious fact that Ireland obtains pro- portionately far more than her share of the sum expended upon old-age pensions. The yield of the Irish revenue now utterly fails to meet the expenditure incurred in Ireland, while that portion of the kingdom contributes nothing whatever either to the Army or to the Navy, or to any other of the Imperial Services of which Irishmen as well as Englishmen have the full benefit.
It is unnecessary to touch upon minor items of the growth in public expenditure. They are to be found on every page of the Estimates. The simple truth is that the Liberal Party has totally abandoned its old ideal of economy. And the reason is fairly obvious. That party no longer strives to represent the taxpayers of the country ; it now appeals almost entirely to those classes who never feel the burden of direct taxation, and who imagine that the pocket of the State can be drawn upon to any extent without thought or fear of the future. In effect, the new policy of the Liberal Party is to maintain itself in power by buying with the taxpayers' money the votes of those who pay no direct taxation.
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